John Miller - Inside Out

She didn't want to think about Wire Dog and Max, but couldn't shake the images of them. She knew if she hadn't come into their lives, both would still be breathing. That was hard to deal with, but the blame wasn't hers-that she laid at Sam Manelli's feet. Sam was responsible for the deaths at Rook Island, Ward Field, and now at the Hotel Grand. She had to get as far from Richmond as she could, fast, and she needed to alter her appearance again as soon as possible. The marshals would be looking for her and she couldn't rule out that Sam's people were somehow getting their fixes on her through them. She wasn't going to call Shapiro-not yet.

A wide-shouldered trucker swaggered in and took a seat at a table to Sean's left. With a shock, she realized that the driver was a woman. Her black hair was combed straight back, except for one dark cable that hung down over her left brow like a rat's tail. The freckle-faced woman sat with her knees wide apart, her shoulders rolled forward, forearms on the table fencing in the cup. She wore leather chaps, a belt with an oval silver buckle, and black boots with engraved silver toe covers. Her two-inch-wide watchband was made of silver and turquoise.

“Where you headed to, Clancy?” another driver called over to her.

“Baton Rouge, J.T.,” Clancy said. “Picking up paper bound for Frisco and bringing a load of knit shirts back to New Jersey.”

Clancy looked around the room, and finally parked her raisin-colored eyes on Sean. When Sean smiled, the trucker looked away, picked up the piping-hot coffee, and took a swallow of it before lighting a cigarette.

Sean's waitress seemed to know Clancy, so when she came over to give Sean a refill, she asked her about the female driver.

“Clancy Ross out of Houston. She comes through several times a year.”

Sean took her coffee and her backpack and walked over to Clancy's table, where the driver studied Sean suspiciously.

“I hate to bother you,” Sean started. “My name's Sally. May I sit down and talk to you?”

Clancy nodded, keeping her hard eyes on Sean. “If you're looking for a soft touch, sister, you're climbing a shaky ladder,” Clancy said.

“Oh, no,” Sean said. “That isn't it at all.” She smiled as disarmingly as possible.

Clancy was clearly expecting an angle, but nodded for Sean to sit. “I'm listening, little sister.”

“I'm a freelance writer doing a magazine story on truck drivers.”

“For what magazine?”

“Whoever will buy it.”

“Is that so?” Clancy's expression was doubtful.

Sean knew that she looked like a wacko who was running on desperation. “I was looking for a driver who would let me ride along for a few hundred miles. Share what the road is like with me. I mean, we all see trucks on the highways, but few of us know what a driver's life is like-your hopes and dreams and the long hours. And I was thinking that a female driver in a man's world was a great hook for a story.”

“You think riding with a woman teamster is safer than with a man?”

“I think I would be more comfortable with a woman.”

Clancy's breakfast arrived. She began eating it, hunched over the plate proprietorially like a prisoner protecting it from other inmates. Smoke curled up from the cigarette in her left hand.

“It's important to me,” Sean implored.

Clancy spoke without looking up. “Where you been published before?”

“All kinds of places.”

“You're full of shit, Sally,” Clancy said, chortling. “Husband or a lover after you? Want my help, level with me.”

“Husband,” Sean conceded, sensing this inadvertent change in tactic would seal the deal.

“Here in Richmond?”

Sean nodded. “He's a cop. His father's a judge.”

“And you want to get away to where?”

“Are you going near Charlotte?”

“I can take ninety-five to eighty-five south. It runs right through Charlotte,” Clancy said without looking up. “Leaving in ten minutes.”

“I'll just freshen up,” Sean said.

There was a bank of pay phones on the wall near the bathrooms. Sean dialed a number and slipped quarters she had gotten from the cashier into the slot. She trembled involuntarily as the phone rang. She was ready to hang up after two rings, when an impatient voice answered. “Yeah, what?”

As soon as Sean spoke, the silence on the other end was deafening. Sean was overwhelmed with the feeling that she had just made a very big mistake.

Ten minutes later, Sean climbed up into the cab of a black Diamond Reo with a pair of dice painted on the door and strapped herself into the passenger seat.

Clancy selected a CD and slipped it into the player. As the truck headed up onto the interstate, rich cello music filled the cab.

“Yo-Yo Ma,” Clancy called out over the music. “He's Asian.”

As a rail-thin six-year-old, Winter Massey had clutched his mother's hand as a guide in khaki shorts led a long line of tourists deep into the earth. Bare bulbs lit the cavern walls. Their guide had explained that the cave was once solid rock and that dripping water had entered the cracks in it and had, over millions of years, cut out the tunnels they were walking through. Winter had been frightened by the stalactites, which looked like pointy teeth with saliva dripping from the tips. At some point during that tour, the guide had extinguished the lights.

Winter came around and found himself in a place that was as dark as the cave in his memory, but the air was thick with dust from a recent explosion. There was a slight ringing in his ears not unlike what happened when he stood too close to a gun being fired without wearing proper ear protection. Beyond that ringing and somewhere close by, water dripped. And by tuning his ears past the water falling, he made out a persistent rumbling sound punctuated by a sharp scraping.

Why is it so dark?

Stay calm.

Am I hurt?

Broken bones?

Torn ligaments?

Broken neck?

Winter fought to push back the worst imaginable thought, but it persisted and filled his entire mind like a noxious gas. He couldn't see! He fought to see something-anything. He was looking out at a totally blank slate-nothing but thoughts. I can't be blind. Please God, don't let me be trapped in darkness. A picture of Rush formed in his mind-a before-and-after image. This is what it was like to be blind. Suddenly, he knew that it was just dark. A sudden giddiness swept over him and pushed away the panic. He assumed that the bomb had dumped rubble over him. It was still night. He might be crushed to death if the floor above him didn't hold up, or smother or drown, but if there was light he would be able to see it.

As he lay there, he gathered his thoughts and breathed slowly to calm himself and concentrate on surviving. Although he had obviously lived through it, he didn't remember the explosion, so he must have been unconscious. When he had seen the explosives in the refrigerator, he had bolted, running out into the service hall and jumping into the garbage chute. As he fell, he had slowed his decent by pressing the edges of his running shoe soles against the smooth metal sides like brakes.

Winter had never carried a lighter or matches, because he had never been a smoker. He had grown up resenting the odor his father's cigarettes had left in the Massey home, his nicotine-stained fingers. The sight of that sullen stranger in his underwear at the kitchen table, bleary-eyed, drink in hand, and enveloped in a cloud of smoke was one that continued to haunt him.

“Winter, you son of a bitch, you're alive,” he said, pleased by the sound of his own voice.

He was flat on his back on an uneven surface. He felt pain but couldn't tell what part of his head hurt. He moved his fingers first, raising then lowering them. His wrists were sore but not broken, and his elbows and shoulders seemed fine. He moved his toes, ankles, and knees. He was in the building's basement lying on rolls of carpet padding or soundproofing material, which probably cushioned his landing and saved his life.